


In the morning hour she calls

by Helendmeyourears



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25921387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helendmeyourears/pseuds/Helendmeyourears
Summary: Nile finds the little things in life that carry you home, even from the Middle of Nowhere, Montana.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 52





	In the morning hour she calls

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver, because this is that kind of fic.

Middle of Nowhere, Montana, is not the worst place in the world to be, Nile knows.

The locals, while few and far between, are nice enough. They nod in greeting on the streets as they cruise by in the kind of trucks like her grandpa used to own, small, square, and old, the kind where you had to wrestle with a crank to roll the windows down, earn the right to let some fresh air into the cabin that always smelled of stale air and old people.

Grandpa used to sit in his truck in the mornings, even after he wasn’t allowed to drive anymore, rising with the sun to climb out of bed and right into the driver’s seat, still and quiet like a cat soaking in the heat of daylight through the dusty windshield.

She’d never thought to ask him why he did that, but she thinks she has an idea now.

The old guard are obviously not her parents, and she’s 25 anyway, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling like a teenager sneaking from home when she slips out of the cabin before anyone else wakes- and she still can’t believe it’s a real, actual cabin either, all stacked logs and high roofs and bright windows, like something out of a brochure.

“Desperate times,” Andy had said with a small shrug, noticing Nile’s disbelief, her introduction to their safehouses having been abandoned places and literal caves.

Their new car isn’t as nice, but it’s still miles better than grandpa’s truck, which is to say it looks like shit but they don’t have to cross their fingers that it will splutter its way to life with every start of the ignition.

Still, it brings her some small comfort, to sit in it and know that no matter how much her life may change, there will always be something to bring her back home: watching the sunrise climb lazily over the treetops, as her grandpa did so many years before. Or that the locals call it “pop” and not “soda,” just the same as they do back in Chicago. 

Or the way Joe sings at night, always at night, often after he and she and Nicky come together to pray, and though their motions sometimes differ, and the languages, the words- the sentiment, she knows, to their shared God is the same.

It fills her heart until she almost can’t bear it, but she does. For now, she does. 

Joe’s song, steady and low, floats to her like a river, carrying memories of her mother, singing Nile and her brother to sleep at night, their hands clasped together in what she no longer thinks of as a prayer, but a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> I've not written in years, so feedback is extremely appreciated! Also, catch me on tumblr @astral-kaysani, I prefer posting to that hellsite over this one


End file.
